Bird Zapper Preview

Bird Zapper flying high on the App Store this March

Whether they’re Angry or they just have tiny wings, birds are a hot commodity these days on the iPhone. Namco, a classic arcade company that’s been no slouch when it comes to the App Store, are hoping their next title takes flight: a new arcade puzzler called Bird Zapper.

Bird Zapper, as the name would suggest, is a game about sending a quick jolt of electricity through some your unsuspecting avian adversaries. You’ll play as a squirrel who had made his home in a hunk of wood connected to some power lines. Like any good creature, this squirrel just wants to squeeze in a little sleep from time to time. Problem is, some noisy birds have decided to make the electrical cables above their hangout. If you want to let the squirrel get any sleep, you’ll have to shock those birds right out of their nests!

At its core, Bird Zapper is a match-3 game. But unlike other match-3 games where the field remains stationary, the lines of birds are continuously moving along the horizontal axis. This means you’ll be trying to make groups of three as you watch the birds constantly shuttle back and forth across the screen.

To help alleviate some of the challenge this could present, players don’t need to make a row of 3 birds to zap them out of the game – they’ll merely need to have three birds touching. So if two red owls are side-by-side and another is just below them, that’ll count as a group of three.

In addition to the base gameplay, Bird Zapper will offer three different modes of play, special attacks (freeze, bomb, etc..) and Game Center achievements. Expect this one to nest in the App Store later this month for the iPhone and iPad. An Android version is set to follow at a later date.